Ok, well i used to be paid but becuase of real life, I had to end my subscription. I never went into PvP before, but I think it may be fun because if I do it with a froob toon, and it doesnt work out, then its no big deal.

I have a level 25 solitus trader with minimal equipment such as carb, cheap shotgun, and some ql 30 imps so in otherwords, gimp.
I know that traders *can* be good at PvP so i thought I could try to make a twink out of one.

I thought i would use a Pump Master, Implants around ql 100-110 ish and some sort of armor. Tbh, I have no idea how to set him up. My first problem is IP.. I have shotgun/fling maxed, along with nanoskills for drains and some buffs. Also, i have evade close and dodge ranged maxed. I have first aid maxed so i dont run out of nano when casting drains in battle, but this leaves me with little IP for Duck (forgot about other traders) or NR. so basically my questions are:

what armor is advised? I was thinking of CAS or perhaps Carb

What about IP distribution? I just need to know if i should bother raising first aid or NR ( I do not know if it is worth it in low level PvP).

Other equipment would be advised? I dont know much about hud/util/wrist items that would viable for my level, or maybe there is none

I would prefer the project not to cost more then 20m (not including the gun, because i already have one ) so nothing extremely rare. Thank you for helping as much as this sounds like a noob trying to PvP.

well, fortunately i have been fiendishly making twinks and running into tower fields for almost a year now, and have always been totally froob... so here's my recommendations from experience...

one thing to be sure to look at is lvl range, at 25 you have about 19-31 in range, so you're open to attack from 21, 24, 25, 30/31 twinks... as a trader, you don't have anything lvl locked that you would want to shoot just above (some proffs have lvl locked stuff at 25) so it really all depends what kind of towers you want to be fighting at... personally i would suggest either a reroll to 21 (nice range, 15-27) or bump to 30, but that's up to you...

what i would do is before starting the twinking, use either a full of couple resets, since usually you don't want to IP any weapons skills or evades (especially on trader) or extra nano skills (other than PM/TS) untill your imps are all in so as to be sure you aren't wasting IP in making skills higher than they need... in my experience, you will almost always want to max your nano res (important to help keep enemy nanos from landing), and first aid will be fairly high since stims can make the difference in a fight, but i would leave the first aid for later to ip with some of the extra you saved keep in mind also you will want to save IP to be able to use kizzers (you will have to work some clusters for sharp obj. into your imps) which takes sharp obj. and psychology (think its around 301 sharp, 101 psych)

100-110 sounds right at 25 for imps, as for armor i will now and always swear by miy's armor of any kind for a lowbie froob twink in combination with storm/omni carb... i don't see cas doing as much for you simply because the miys stuff has almost all relevant mods depending what piece you wear... (prob mostly miys ranged)
for wrist items, i have always liked the first to be the shiny band from newb isle (+20 hp) and if you're not advy or MA the other wrist could be capsule of thin blood (+2 BD) found from the special leets...
as for hud/util stuff, you will deff want the scope from TIM in formans if you are using a pump... and advanced scent sensor (+22 sense) is an amazing item as it trickles fling and shotty a little i believe along with evades...
as per the typical standard of lowbie twinking, collar from coh, exarch robe, notum ring (i think the PM/SI one), totw meatpads, and ring of nucleus basalis will probably be in your setup, along with typical trader ncu craziness (6 slot belt, recompiler, around 130-140 ncus, ncu upgrade for -cost or range increaser)...

an absolutely imperative item i constantly recommend is scorpiod scent (keeps scorpiods from agging you), it's an item you get when pulling a quest and you can keep it even if you don't finish it. the reason it's so important is because in the lvl range you're looking at you will frequently be in areas that have scorpiods (and i think they may also be social), and they can really ruin a fight if not dealt with or if there's someone training them on you... which doesn't do a thing with the scent

"our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising each time we fall" -confucius
"the only way evil succeedes is when good men sit back and do nothing"
"to really live, you must first be truly ready to die"
"the greatest thing you will ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return"
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-When God said, "Let there be light", Chuck Norris said, "say please."
-When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
-underneath Chuck Norris' beard, there's no chin- only another fist.

Thanks for the Very useful advice. I suppose I will re-roll to level 21 so I can still mess around in the subways. Without your post i probably would have made my org lose a few towers in battles hehe.

scyper wrote:Thanks for the Very useful advice. I suppose I will re-roll to level 21 so I can still mess around in the subways. Without your post i probably would have made my org lose a few towers in battles hehe.

Thanks

edit: and btw, the lvl cap for subway was raised to 25

also remember that at 21+ you become able to get the fast attack req for melee weapons which typically are either the neleb nightmare rod or frost scythe of legionnaire (rod from steps of madness, frosty from totw).
while i personally don't agree with melee as a trader since your bread and butter are your roots, and in general making sure you don't get hit (why root if you have to attack in melee anyway?), they can certainly give you solid damage which is something traders notoriously lack (not to say that pump wouldn't)...
the FA req might be a little tough to get, but could be worth it... keep in mind though that if you decided to go melee, i would roll as atrox or solitus to be a little more sturdy in combat and get your imps in easier and higher thanks to higher str/stam cap...

the rod is here : http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=274955" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
it has nice damage and has a 20 pt nano drain each hit which can both help cripple an opponent's casting and refill you for more drains and roots (you probably wouldn't need to cripple their nano though since one drain keeps anyone from casting anything), and gives +100 max nano.

the frosty is here : http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=204746" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
many people favor this weapon simply because of the fact it has totally consistent damage (hitting for the same amount every hit), and has no max beneficial skill cap (meaning no matter how much skill you have or how much you get from drains, it will continue to scale up in damage and AR). also note that frosty is a little bit slower as a drawback to the consistency of damage...

just a thought to consider, like i said i would rather be ranged as a trader anyway but to each their own. just wanted to make sure you know all your options...

"our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising each time we fall" -confucius
"the only way evil succeedes is when good men sit back and do nothing"
"to really live, you must first be truly ready to die"
"the greatest thing you will ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return"
<(-'.'-)> Q(-'.'-Q) <(-'.'-<) (>-'.'-)> O==(-.-Q) t(-'.'-t)
-When God said, "Let there be light", Chuck Norris said, "say please."
-When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
-underneath Chuck Norris' beard, there's no chin- only another fist.

GDB2222 wrote:I was watching low lvl tower fight (our low lvl field being picked off!), and it was neleb rods all the way.

yeh but like i said, that depends on the lvl toon you aim for, and what proff...
obviously its the wep of choice for enfos at 21-24, but higher up styg becomes viable...
and yes frosty is slow, but that's a drawback of it hitting totally predictable damage and hitting hard...
what i'm saying is don't make your toon to fit the rod if it's not right for the lvl/proff...
i am actually about to make a thread for a 14 trader i'm building to use pump...

Goldberg wrote:I'v calculated Solk'sX2.. could work fine, the main issues that pistol conflicts with Shrp-Obj :/

i would have to say the pistols would probably be better for a non-trader proff like a doc, crat, or advy but those aren't really great for the lvl range you're aiming at...

"our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising each time we fall" -confucius
"the only way evil succeedes is when good men sit back and do nothing"
"to really live, you must first be truly ready to die"
"the greatest thing you will ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return"
<(-'.'-)> Q(-'.'-Q) <(-'.'-<) (>-'.'-)> O==(-.-Q) t(-'.'-t)
-When God said, "Let there be light", Chuck Norris said, "say please."
-When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
-underneath Chuck Norris' beard, there's no chin- only another fist.

trust me, i have a 21 trader on RK 2 who is wearing legchppers and used frosty... its not a pritty sight, the weapon is worthless in towers, i used styg and the dmg doubled
as soon as ill have some free time to get back on the game ill redo him for neleb rod, its much better then the 2 above (hands down!).

as for the sol-ks, i have another trader (level 49) and she is using a ql 80 SOL-k91 with a CDR, obviously the low ql of the sol-k is due to the self-buffed fights in BS arena, the SOL does beautiful dmg! wearing 2 of these babies (ql110~) at level 21 or 25 will defently own (i think even will out-damage a pump or the neleb rod)... i never tried it, just based on some experience i have with the pistol and "gut feelings" ... again i would give it a shot myself, sadly i dont have the time right now... either-way, dont be so haste to overrule them.

Goldberg wrote:trust me, i have a 21 trader on RK 2 who is wearing legchppers and used frosty... its not a pritty sight, the weapon is worthless in towers, i used styg and the dmg doubled
as soon as ill have some free time to get back on the game ill redo him for neleb rod, its much better then the 2 above (hands down!).

as for the sol-ks, i have another trader (level 49) and she is using a ql 80 SOL-k91 with a CDR, obviously the low ql of the sol-k is due to the self-buffed fights in BS arena, the SOL does beautiful dmg! wearing 2 of these babies (ql110~) at level 21 or 25 will defently own (i think even will out-damage a pump or the neleb rod)... i never tried it, just based on some experience i have with the pistol and "gut feelings" ... again i would give it a shot myself, sadly i dont have the time right now... either-way, dont be so haste to overrule them.

(btw, all my toons are froobs)

i would have to agree that 21+ rod is deff better than anything else if you're gonna go melee, what with the nano draining and additional max nano. i personally don't like styg will 24+ for reasons of it's damage minimum and AR, since at that low if you get hit with a good drain, it will prob oe to 75% (and usually trader on trader fights each usually gets 1 drain on each other). i also really only like the frosty at lower of a lvl than 21 but i have seen some pretty fantastic 21 trox frosty traders around... the damage isn't for the towers, it's for the people, and having no MBS cap on those things makes your damage that much bigger after drains.

the pistols would deff outdamage pump at that lvl, not so sure about rod...

frubs wrote:At all costs, go with the SOL pistols rather than the Neleb's rod, simply because everybody and their dog uses neleb's rod in TL21! It is a good weapon, but overuse kinda ruins the interest of it...

while i agree, you...could...cite the fact of game dynamics that is the same reason i am going pump at 14 which is that being you have to cast roots to keep people from damaging you (and buy time to drain them to death) anyway, may as well use ranged. another reason that is a good idea is because of the fact that even if their damage is nerfed after your drains, an enemy with rod would still be able to 'wound' you with the nano drain.

Lassssi wrote:SOLs are good pistols.
There might be an issue with flingrequirement of those though.
Meaning that it maybe that one cannot equip very high SOL because twinking fling has its limits.

well, not just fling but MR would keep you from being able to get a pair of ridiculously high ql ones on, guess that's why everyone goes for 2 handed weapons

"our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising each time we fall" -confucius
"the only way evil succeedes is when good men sit back and do nothing"
"to really live, you must first be truly ready to die"
"the greatest thing you will ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return"
<(-'.'-)> Q(-'.'-Q) <(-'.'-<) (>-'.'-)> O==(-.-Q) t(-'.'-t)
-When God said, "Let there be light", Chuck Norris said, "say please."
-When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
-underneath Chuck Norris' beard, there's no chin- only another fist.